Editing mastered files

menamestom

I noticed a slight pop / glitch at the start of a mastered track so need to trim the start.

If I do so in something like Audacity, will exporting the project change the audio file in any way other than the silence I have added at the start.

I have changed the MP3 and WAV files.  They were mastered on Landr.  When outputting I have chosen the same file type, bit rate / depth etc but just wondering if the whole track will be subject to a different output algo and whether it matters.

octatonic

Should be OK.
Audacity is fine other than the clunky interface.
I actually like using it for exporting as it supports .ogg which a lot of game engines use.

What are you worried about, specifically?

Make sure the mp3 tagging is still there.
I'm happy to compare before and after if that helps you.

menamestom

octatonic said:

Should be OK.
Audacity is fine other than the clunky interface.
I actually like using it for exporting as it supports .ogg which a lot of game engines use.

What are you worried about, specifically?

Make sure the mp3 tagging is still there.
I'm happy to compare before and after if that helps you.

Thanks for the reply.

I guess it’s more tiredness than anything, after a long week at work, coming home and firing up the 2nd job laptop and then over thinking things like this.

It sounds the same, so more of a sanity check than anything.  But if Audacity is well thought of I don’t need to worry, it just felt I was messing with the master rather than the slight trim that it was.

Thanks for the offer but no need to check I’m 2nd guessing simple things I don’t need to!

Stuckfast

Can Audacity edit MP3 files natively? If not then you would be better off creating a new MP3 from the WAV version. 

If you do this in, say, Pro Tools, importing the MP3 will convert it to a WAV for editing, whereupon you then have to convert it back to MP3 again. So effectively it would have been converted to MP3 twice and will sound worse for it.

Stratavarious

I’d only edit the original .wav to maintain the fidelity and export a new .mp3 after. Avoid any risk of losses in multiple conversions.

I use Reaper for lots of editing tasks like this but Audacity should work fine.